They had been friends since they were eight. Through school, through the terrible years of figuring out who they were, through their first real heartbreaks told to each other in late-night phone calls.
At some point in their thirties, the calls got shorter. The gap between them got longer. No fight. No incident. Just life moving in different directions with different speeds.
At thirty-seven, she looked at a photo of them at nineteen and felt something close to grief. Not for a person. For a closeness she couldn’t quite remember losing.
Some friendships don’t end. They just slowly become something smaller. The distance grows in such small increments that neither person makes a decision to leave. You both just keep moving and one day the space between you is too wide to cross without it feeling deliberate. And the deliberateness required feels too much like admitting something neither of you has said.
I have a handful of people like this. People I love without being close to anymore. The love is real. So is the gap. Both things can be true.
She looked at the photo. She thought about calling. She didn’t call. She told herself she’d do it soon.
They’ve both been saying soon for years.
What is each of them waiting for the other one to do first?
The cruelest thing about drifting is that the effort required to reverse it grows with every month that passes. What would have taken a text at month two takes a conversation at year five. And neither person wants to be the one who says: I’ve missed you. I let this go too long. Come back.
She still has the photo. She still thinks about calling.
Some things worth sitting with:
- Is there someone you drifted from without ever deciding to?
- What are you waiting for before you reach out?
- Is there a friendship you would grieve if you found out today it was over?
You might also find yourself in They Talked Every Day for Two Years. Then One Day They Just Didn’t..
Inspired by a real story shared anonymously online.